UNTEL

LA BOÎTE UNTEL

Description

Numbered and signed copy

UNTEL is a group of artists consisting originally of three French artists, Jean-Paul Albinet, Philippe Cazal and Alain Snyers. During its brief but passionate existence, from 1975 to 1980, the group has led numerous actions in the public sphere. The focal point of the group’s actions is the examination of the day-to-day life, shaped by social and political questioning, and impregnated to the revolutionary ideas of May 1968 and situationism. The proximity of UNTEL’s creation process to this idea of the lived experience led Ben Vautier to included UNTEL in the program of La Maison du Doute in Blois, France, in the spring of 2013. This way, he historically designated UNTEL as post-Fluxus. The idea of an art that first and foremost has to be experienced and lived, seems indeed in line with UNTEL’s considerations.

In collaboration with the group, mfc-michèle didier has published today LA BOÎTE UNTEL (The UNTEL box), a new edition limited to 24 copies. LA BOÎTE UNTEL compiles a series of testimonies of the group’s actions led in the second half of the seventies, providing a coherent collection of objects and documents. The box includes carefully selected items: index cards, historical articles and critic’s reviews, flyers, the famous inkpad “PLUS RIEN À VENDRE TOUT À ÉCHANGER“ (Nothing for sale any more, everything for trade), or the ironic “TOURISTE“ badge, one of their favorite accessories.

In addition, we can find the soundtrack of the environment VIE QUOTIDIENNE (Everyday life), which was initially presented in 1977 at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and is today exhibited in the rooms dedicated to contemporary art of the Musée d’Art modern et contemporain de Strasbourg; exhibited alongside are several videos testifying to a selection of the most striking interventions they made in the urban area, like the performance of LE DÉJEUNER SUR L'HERBE in 1975 are exhibitied.

In addition, a rubber stamp, an inkpad, a badge, 396 index cards are preserved in LA BOÎTE UNTEL. They come from the catalogue UNTEL, 1975-1980 ARCHIVES and propose, in a series of successive chapters, a photographic documentation for each intervention led during the group’s existence. These 396 unbound cards, coming with an instruction sheet, provide an UNTEL retrospective, creating an “exhibition kit” the same way you might have a furniture kit.